HUMANITY: A Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Novel

C
opyright
© 2015 by E. Brody

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

L
ight seeped
through the cracks between Mich’s eyelids as he attempted to make sense of his surroundings. He felt a heaviness on each of them as if they were weighed down by rocks. Nothing was visible but white. His head was pounding, and there was ringing in his ears. “What the hell? Why can’t I see anything?” he asked himself.

He tried to cry out for help, but his mouth didn’t fully open, and so-hard as he strained, he couldn’t make a sound. His face tingled, and he felt as though he had no arms or legs; he was just a body- trapped in an expanse of white light. “Am I dead? If this is death, then death is terrible,” he thought.

The air was damp, cold, and as blood started to circulate through his body, his extremities twitched.

“No… I’m not dead,” he remembered. “Something must have gone wrong during
the process
. I should’ve known it was a bad investment.” The idea made his anger rise.

With his body heating up, he could feel his limbs slowly becoming tangible again. They felt stiff and sore, sending off bolts of pain whenever he tried to make even the minutest bit of movement.

“Sandra…. Fucking Sandra… Help me, Sandra,” he managed to muttered creakily.

There wasn’t a response.

He slowly tried moving his knee to take a step, but instead he fell to the ground with a loud thud. His head snapped sideways and hit a hard metal base, landing in a thin puddle of water and causing the ringing in his ears to grow louder.

“Help…” he groaned as he lay there trembling.

Again, there was no response.

Someone was going to get fired. How long had it been? 3 minutes? 5 minutes? Why was he so hungry?

His vision slowly started to return as he lay sideways on the ground, and colors were finally appearing on the wall directly in front of him. The wall was a flat, grey steel with small orange lights lining the base, twinkling every few seconds. The ground was riveted metal as if it were a step-up plate for a large truck. It didn’t seem like he was in the control room where he had been frozen. Had they move him to another area already? He attempted to see out of the corner of his eyes, but long, dark, wet hairs were dangling down his face, covering his peripheral vision.

“Hair?” he wondered. He remembered that he had just shaved his head and shouldn’t have any. “Oh my god. What did they do to me?” The last memory he had was stepping into the VPoint Cryonics tank, and counting down to 3. That was just a few minutes ago, wasn’t it?

He felt a spark of fearful energy and mustered enough strength to roll himself on his back. The bright lights hanging from the ceiling stung his eyes and reminded him of a hospital room. Before he could plan his next movement, he heard the sound of pressure being released and smooth steel sliding against smooth steel–the sound of a door opening.

The clamor of steps, multiple steps, grew closer to him, and he could hear someone chattering in the background. He didn’t understand what they were saying and wasn’t sure how close they were. Had his hearing been damaged somehow?

Their unusual chatter continued a few seconds longer, and then two shadowy figures appeared directly above, silently observing him.

“Holy shit!” Mich whimpered.

The two silhouettes blocked enough of the light above to allow his eyes to refocus. Both figures were about 5’ tall, appeared identical, and had large round heads with jet-black, oval-shaped eyes. Their skin was hairless and a smooth white with not a flaw anywhere to be found. They seemed expressionless, emotionless. Perhaps there was a slight bit of interest showing in their face, but their appearance was so unfamiliar, he couldn’t be sure.

Mich’s jaw tightened, and he squirmed his unwilling muscles in an effort to get away from the frightening creatures.

“Welcome back, Mich Sandstone,” the one in the right echoed, its voice sounding as if it had been processed through a complicated music processor.

Mich had no idea where he was or what had happened, but one thing was clear–He had either lost his mind or was no longer in the company of humans.

He was sure he hadn’t made a good investment.

T
he sound
of Beastie Boys “Fight for Your Right” blared loudly through Mich’s downtown loft. Sure, it was 2016, but he still loved the 80’s hits.

He stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom, swaying his hips to the music while brushing his teeth. Occasionally he would snap his fingers or bob his head in an effort to maximize his enjoyment, not caring how ridiculous he may or may not seem.

“Hey babe! What are you planning on doing today?!” he yelled out through the foam in his mouth.

After a delay, a leggy girl made her way to the entrance of the bathroom. “Huh, what’d you say?” she asked. She was average height with long blonde hair and large natural breasts openly on display, showing not an ounce of shame as she stood there wearing nothing but a tiny pair of panties. Her face was youthful and her pointy nose wrinkled when she spoke.

“Just asked where you’re going today.”

“I don’t know, I’ll probably go get my hair done and go out with the girls later. That is–unless you want to stick around and play with me some more.” She bit the tip of her tongue as she smiled.

He had met Amy just a few nights ago at the Kitten Club a few miles from where he worked. She said that she had only been dancing for a week, but Mich didn’t care if it had been a week or 10 years. He enjoyed her company, but wasn’t looking for any sort of relationship with anyone. There were too many girls on his smorgasbord, and it was only Monday.

Mich spit the remaining mouthwash from his mouth and turned around while drying the edge of his lips with a small towel. He threw the towel over to the side of the room and walked directly in front of the girl, looking down at her thin frame.

He towered several inches over her, and she pressed the flat of her arms against his sculptured abs when he whipped his hand around the small of her back, pulling her in close and giving her a quick kiss on the lips. “You know I wish I could babe, but I’ve got work today.”

The girl pouted and playfully punched him on his protruding chest. “Oh you’re no fun! All you ever do is work.”

“Hey, if I don’t work how am I going to pay for all this?” Mich spread his arms apart indicating his large home in the center of Los Angeles. He had bought the 6-bedroom penthouse earlier in the year for a cool 10 million, and had decorated it with some of the finest decor money could buy.

Mich walked to his closet and retrieved a pair of designer dress slacks and casually started to put them on. After only getting one leg into the slacks, he noticed the girl had put his baseball cap on and was dancing bouncily to the music.

“Come on baby, can’t we play just a liii-ttle bit?” She grabbed the bed post and bent over, wiggling her perfectly round butt around as if she were offering a slice of cheese to a mouse.

Blood rushed out of Mich’s brain to below his waist, and he quickly stopped what he was doing. He stepped out the one pant leg, leaving the expensive slacks on the ground and walked over to the girl, giving her a hard slap on the ass. He forcibly grabbed her neck from behind and pulled her ear up to his mouth. “You get me every single time,” he whispered.

The girl squealed with glee as he turned her around and picked her up, placing her back-first on top of the bed. He pulled her last piece of cloth off with one swift motion and put an ankle in each of his hands, revealing the prize that was waiting underneath.

“I love my life...” he thought to himself as he slowly moved his head down toward the girl’s naughty bits. “How old are you again?” he asked.

M
ich waved
Amy goodbye after dropping her off at a cheap apartment in Hollywood and sped down the road in his Aston Martin. His top was down, and wind coursed through his short, brown hair. Gun’s and Roses was blasting from his speakers, markedly overpowering any other cars that were unfortunate enough to drive beside him. He knew that he looked obnoxious in his flashy car with loud deafening music, but it was the only way he knew how to live.

He had come from a broken family. Mich had never met his father, and his mother changed men just as frequently as she changed location. As soon as he was old enough, he got a job and moved out to live on his own.

After saving a bit of money, he started up a diet company that sold weight loss pills and made millions. He turned the millions in the multimillions by investing in various other start-ups. Now, at the age of 26, with a little bit of work and a little bit of luck, Mich had everything that most men had ever dreamed.

He pulled up to front of his company, Sintech–a modern, mid-rise building with the company name etched across the front of the doors and threw his keys to a young valet as he exited his car. “Hey, make sure you take care of ‘er,” he said with a wink. The valet smiled and bowed as Mich sauntered past.

“Good Evening Mr. Sandstone,” a pretty receptionist at the front desk said as he passed through the company corridors. Nearly every employee at his company smiled and gave their hellos as he walked by.

The employees at Sintech loved Mich. He was fun, he paid everyone well, and so-long as everybody did their job, he never gave anyone a hard time. Some said he was a workaholic, but he thought he was just doing his job. Most people couldn’t understand why a man who had accumulated so much wealth and had so many toys would want to continue working day after day, but Mich continually strove to outdo himself.

Right before he reached his personal office, a scrawny man appeared out of nowhere. “Hey Mich, We’ve got a couple new proposals today,” he said as he rubbed his hands through his black tussled hair. His black slacks and white button-up matched Mich’s, but his looked like it was two sizes too big against his small frame.

Benny was the Vice President of Sintech, and one of Mich’s best friends. They had grown up together, and Benny helped Mich get his first job ever as a server at a Vietnamese restaurant named “Cho Cho Wang”. Mich thought it was only right for him to pay the favor back to Benny when he had made it big and gave him the job as his right hand man. Benny was 5’6”– 4 inches shorter than Mich–thin as rails, and never had a girl want him for anything other than money.

“New proposals, ay? I hope they’re better than the wicker chair thing we got last week.”

“Way better–and kind of cool too.”

They made their way inside of Mich’s office, a neatly organized room with floor-to-ceiling windows, and Benny closed the door as Mich sat down behind his oversized ebony wood desk.

“Well… tell me about them already. What are they?”

“The first is for solar powered farming equipment. Basically what they want to do is–”

“Not interested. Next one.”

“Cryonics.”

“What’s that?”

“Human Cryogenics. A company called VPoint is looking for investors to help with their suspended animation project for humans. Basically, they freeze people, place their body in these steel storage tanks… and after XYZ amount of time, they unfreeze them.”

“Ha!” Mitch huffed. “And who would want to do such a thing?

“The terminally ill. Say you’re dying of AIDS or cancer, and there’s still no cure in sight. VPoint can freeze you for an indefinite amount of time, and when a cure is developed, they’ll unfreeze you, and you can go about your life without any realized downtime. And rich people too. They’ve stated in their report that they’ve already got a waiting list of celebrities who want to be frozen in hopes that life can be extended in the distant future. Pretty wild, right?”

“Not quite what I was hoping for, but at least it’s not wicker chairs or farming equipment. How much are they asking?”

“110 million for a 15% stake. I think the potential to triple our money in less than 3 years here, man.”

“Phew, that’s a whole lot of eggs to put in one basket for just 15%. I’ll give it some thought, but I think we’ll probably have to do a pass. Any others?”

“That’s all for today.”

“Okay, leave the reports on my desk.”

Before Benny could leave, a verbal commotion could be heard outside of Mich’s office. Mich stood up, and the pair stepped outside to see what was going on. All the employees were standing up at their desks with mouths agape, staring at the television screens that were mounted overhead.

“What is this?” Mich mumbled to one of the workers. The worker just pointed at the screen as if he had no words to describe what was going on.

A suited man sat behind a long desk and spoke, blank-faced, directly to the camera.

“
W
e repeat again
it has been confirmed that nuclear bombs have detonated across Syria, Israel and Lebanon. We presume that millions are dead, but the death toll has not yet been confirmed. A Middle Eastern terrorist coalition, Shashu Shabuli, is claiming responsibility, and promising that there will more widespread attacks if the US and Europe do not withdrawal all troops from Iran immediately.

We repeat, parts of Syria, Israel and Lebanon have been victims of Nuclear weaponry...”

“
F
uck
, man…” Benny muttered.

“When was the last time that kind of damage was done to any place in the world? Hiroshima?” Mich asked. Mich’s stomach turned as he thought of the thousands or millions of lives that had been lost.

“I don’t know, but certainly not during our lifetime. That’s bat-shit crazy. We’ve got to do something about those terrorist scum.”

Mich clapped his hands loudly and motioned for the attention of everyone in the office. “So it looks like today is a pretty crazy day in the world, and I doubt we’ll get a whole lot of stuff done with what we just saw on our minds. I want everyone to take the day off and go home to spend time with their families.”

When he muttered those last words, a bottled up pain shot out in Mich’s gut. His employees were smiling and gathering their belongings to go home to their families, but he had no loved ones to go home to. No children, wife, girlfriend, and he hadn’t heard from his mother since he moved out as a teen. Despite having a massive bank account, he was pretty much all alone in the world besides his few friends and the random bed partners he had.

Benny patted his pal on the back. He knew Mich like no one else and figured he would probably be spending the night alone unless he spent it with someone from his little black book. “So how’s that girl… What’s her name? Ariel… err Amy? How about we go have a few drinks at the Kitten Club tonight to take the edge off of things?”

“Hmm.” Mich placed his hand on the light stubble across his chiseled chin. “Sounds good. Why don’t you give me a call later, and we’ll meet up inside?”

“Alright, will-do,” Benny said as he started backpedaling for the door. He stuck two fingers up to the sky, making a horned symbol and pushed his tongue out as far as he could. “To-night-we-are-go-na-get-wayyy-sted.”

Mich chuckled at his friend’s childish demeanor. Seeing him still smiling and wanting to have fun even after hearing terrible news helped lessen the severity of the situation. He was glad to have him around.

He walked back into his office and retrieved the reports that Benny left on his desk, shoving them ungracefully into a briefcase. As he was leaving the office, he took one last look at what was playing on the TV.

The president was making an emergency address to the nation:

“We will not stand by idly as terrorists threaten our nation or the nations around us. We will NOT allow the use of nuclear weapons on civilians under any circumstances. Take note that there will be repercussions for all who were responsible for the attacks today in the Middle East These senseless acts of violence will not go on unpunished…”

Mich shook his head and whispered to himself, “Wild world we live in today. Wild world…”